American Idol, I'm Ctrl + Alt + Deleting You Out of My Life

Watching this season of American Idol is like the time your mom had to unexpectedly go to work on the weekend, so now you're forced to shop for training bras with your dad because you can't bear to spend another day at school without getting the extra coverage your dreidel-shaped boobs deserve. What I'm trying to say is that AI—now in its 12th season—is totes awkward. But I didn't always feel this way. I used to look forward to each new episode. When it was T-minus five minutes to showtime, I'd have the same reaction as when my boss offers to pay for my lunch on Administrative Assistants' Day:

That's right, folks; I'd shake so much in anticipation that I would temporarily knock the curls out my afro, and my hair would become straight like Alasia's for fifteen minutes. Now when someone tells me the show is on I respond the way I did when I met a friend's pretentious and foreign boyfriend, whose name is Dylan, but he pronounced it "Dye-lan:"

Sorry, buddy, but it is and will always be pronounced "Dill-an." Moving on. The point is that all the things I loved about AI when it first began airing in 2002—the discovery of major stars like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood; contestants' interesting song choices (obvs, I mean David Cook covering Michael Jackson); and the #RealTalk critiques from former Idol judge Simon Cowell—have fallen to the wayside in favor of showing countless clips of terrible auditions, the bloated results show that could be wrapped up in a 30-second Gchat sesh, and tons of product placement.

What the heck happened to my show?! Look, I'm not expecting it to be like the old days; I understand that there's bound to be some wear and tear, but this show is clearly in its Elvis-in-a-bedazzled-jumpsuit-years, and I kind of don't want to stick around and see it eat peanut butter and banana sammiches until the bitter end. So after watching nearly every single episode of American Idol, I'm finally giving it the boot. Here are my top five reasons why:

1) The judges are acting like me when my boyfriend and his bros try to take a picture without me:

AKA they've made it all about them. To be fair, when Cowell and Paula Abdul were judges, their banter as well as their critiques of the contestants got plenty of attention. So even if you tuned in for the judges, you stayed because of star-making moments like Fantasia singing "Summertime." Cowell and Abdul eventually left and a revolving door of judges—Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler, Mariah Carey, and Nicki Minaj—created media blitzes and funny intentional and unintentional soundbites; however, despite all the camera time and the insane salaries they received...

"Hold up, we're paying you $18 million so you can sound like a Biggest Loser contestant who, in interviews, pretends to love munching on salads when we all know he misses eating chili cheese fries? You better act like the rent is due on the 1st, Mariah, and formulate a sentence before we cancel your check."

Every time I see one of these cringe-inducing group numbers, I start sitting shiva over the singers' dignity, which has clearly just died. ENOUGH! It's painful watching people in their late teens to early 20s be incapable of singing and toe-tapping on cue when the child cast of Lamb Chop's Play Along mastered that stuff before they got their first pair of big boy/big girl Osh Kosh overalls:

4) Make the season only a billion hours long instead of a gabillion hours long.

I started watching the show when I was 17, and I saw every two-hour long episode because when you dressed as chaste as I did—which a girl friend affectionately said was reminiscent of the Civil Rights Era Little Rock Nine period—you weren't going on many dates. I'm now nearing 30 years old, and I don't have time to waste on endless auditions and group eliminations. I have stuff to do like perfect my imitation of stylist and reality TV star Rachel Zoe saying the word "literally." You know, important things.

5) The WGWG (AKA White Guys With Guitars) problem.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with cute white guys winning. Like Phillip Phillips. Obvs, after that performance I was like:

I'm only human. Duh. But at the same time, the last five winners have all been WGWG, so where's the suspense if we, the viewers, know that one of them will win the whole shebang the minute he shows up to audition? People like the Fantasias and the Bo Bices, who are not ready made pop stars, are no longer contenders nor get as much airtime as it seems the producers and judges are solely on the hunt for the next WGWG to promote heavily so the tween voting audience can crown their winner. Sorry, but last I checked, the show is called American Idol, not Tween Idol.

Do you still watch American Idol? If so, what's keeping you around? If not, what was your breaking point?